Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh’s Muslims, accounting for almost a fifth of the electorate, have been rattled by two major changes in the state’s politics since the early 1990s, and have been drawing and redrawing their political strategy in an attempt to stay electorally relevant.
For, if the Muzaffarnagar riots of 2013 consolidated the Hindu vote here, the 14-month-long farmers’ agitation in 2021 may have well consolidated the farmer vote. (PTI)
Some Muslims say the results of the upcoming polls are especially important, perhaps even posing an existential question to the community, and speak of the need to avoid splitting the Muslim vote. There was a time when the Milli Council, a united platform of Muslims and Islamic bodies used to survey seats and announce support to non-BJP candidates, but this hasn’t happened since mid-2000. As a result, many Muslims in the state are caught in a dilemma: Should they vote for a Muslim candidate, or one from a party that can defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party?
The beginning of the 1990s saw Hindu polarisation on the Ayodhya issue, and also saw the BJP first come to power — in 1991, just a year before the demolition of the Babri Masjid (and only till then), and again in 1997.
But Ayodhya didn’t really have an impact in the West UP. The communal riots of 2013, with their epicentre in Muzaffarnagar in West UP, changed that, consolidating the Hindu vote even in this region. The BJP has won every election since — 2014, 2017, and 2019.
In 2014, when the BJP won 71 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state and its ally, Apna Dal, 2, not a single Muslim was elected to India’s lower house of Parliament (there were 40 Muslim candidates), the first time in the state's electoral history.
Barely two years before that, in the 2012 assembly elections, when the Samajwadi Party came to power, 63 Muslim MLAs were elected to the Vidhan Sabha. Till then, their highest representation in the legislature was 56 in the 2007 assembly polls, when the Bahujan Samaj Party came to power.
The state has 403 assembly constituencies and Muslims form 19.06% of the state’s population of 224.2 million. They account for 30% to 40% of the population in about 10 districts (in some constituencies they form 60% of the electorate) and 30% in 33 of the states 75 districts, the majority in West UP.
The first two phases of the polling will be held in 113 assembly constituencies in 20 districts of this fertile region on February 10 and 14 and set the trend for the remaining five phases of the polling.
The BJP won 93 of the 113 seats in 2017 (55 of the 58 seats going to polls on February 10) explaining its focus on the area. For, if the Muzaffarnagar riots of 2013 consolidated the Hindu vote here, the 14-month-long farmers’ agitation in 2021 may have well consolidated the farmer vote. Many of the farmers protesting three farm reforms passed by the Narendra Modi government outside Delhi’s borders were from this region. PM Modi announced the repeal of these laws late last year, and many experts say the decision was taken with an eye on the UP elections.
Thus, the region is crucial not only for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and its main challenger, the Samajwadi Party-Rashtriya Lok Dal (SP-RLD) alliance, but also for Muslims as a community.
Till the 2014 general elections, many experts believed Muslims tipped the balance in the region, but the consolidation of the Hindu vote changed that.
A political expert in West UP, who did not want to be named, said the community was alarmed by the unprecedented development in 2014 and compelled to rethink ahead of the 2017 Vidhan Sabha and 2019 Lok Sabha elections to ensure representation in both the Houses.
The emphasis was no longer on merely defeating the BJP. It was on voting for a winning Muslim candidate – although, often, the two objectives intersected.
It didn’t work very well in 2017, when only 24 Muslims were elected to the Vidhan Sabha (down from 63), but it worked a little better in 2019, when six Muslim candidates from UP were elected to the Lok Sabha.
As a Muslim professor from Meerut put it: “The secular bloc is not only fragmented, but has also pitted Muslim candidates against each other.”
While the SP-RLD alliance is experimenting with their ‘bhaichara’ (brotherhood) strategy that assumes that there will be a coming together of backward classes, Hindus and Muslims alike to defeat the BJP, and has not fielded a single Muslim candidate from five seats in Muzaffarnagar and fielding a Muslim candidate in the Jat dominated Baghpat constituency, the BSP has upset their applecart by flooding West UP with Muslim candidates. Mayawati has so far fielded 39 Muslims out of 109 constituencies in the region for which her party has announced candidates. Then, there is All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen(AIMIM) leader Asaduddin Owaisi, who is proving a draw with young Muslims, many of whom feel victimised by the Yogi Adityanath government.
Samajwadi Party national president Akhilesh Yadav rules out any anger in the Muslim community over ticket distribution. According to him, even the minorities know who is defeating the BJP and who is throwing a spanner (referring to the BSP and AIMIM) in their efforts to dislodge them (the BJP) from power.
He said, “Yes, the BSP has fielded many Muslim leaders in West UP. Check their track records. They have lost elections in the past.”
The BSP, however, contends that it distributes tickets according to loyalty to party, population percentage and winnability.
Why are Muslims worried?
In 2017, Muslim candidates lost 27 seats (by Vernier’s analysis) on account of split voting, a trend that might well repeat itself in 2022.
Indeed, while ground reports from West UP suggest Muslim voters’ first preference is the Samajwadi Party, they also suggest that the BSP and AIMIM will cut into this.
That would mean a repeat of 2017.
Consider Deoband, which the BJP won for the first time in 2017, as both the SP and the BSP fielded Muslim candidates. The situation was no different in constituencies such as Meerapur, Najibabad, Barhapur, Chandpur, Siwalkhas, Amroha, Moradabad, Rampur, Meerut, Bulandshahr, Aligarh, Firozabad, Pilibhit and Lucknow Cantonment.
The Muslims of the large state managed to stay relevant even after the Congress’ dominance of local politics ended, and with it, the party’s focus on a rainbow coalition of Brahmins-Dalits-Muslims.
They managed to stay relevant despite the Hindu consolidation resulting from the Ram Janmabhoomi movement.
But 2013, and the BJP’s successful effort to consolidate the Hindu vote across other backward classes, even some sections of Dalits changed that.
Some of them see 2022 as an election that will be a milestone in their desire to stay relevant in the political process.
From her perch in Lucknow, HT’s resident editor Sunita Aron will highlight important issues related to the coming elections in Uttar Pradesh
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